Commercial Ground-Based Space Warfare Systems Reshaping the Orbital Contest

Key Takeaways

• Commercial radar and telescope networks now supply much of the orbital tracking data used by U.S. Space Force operators.
• L3Harris Meadowlands and the Northstrat-CACI Remote Modular Terminal form a new ground-based satellite-jamming triad.
• Anduril’s March 2026 agreement to buy ExoAnalytic folds the largest commercial GEO telescope network into a defense prime.

Anduril’s Move on ExoAnalytic and the Commercial Consolidation of Space Warfare Infrastructure

Anduril Industries announced on March 11, 2026 a definitive agreement to acquire ExoAnalytic Solutions, one of the premier American firms specializing in satellite and missile tracking. The transaction brings 130 ExoAnalytic staff and the world’s largest commercial optical telescope network under the umbrella of a defense contractor with more than $1 billion in annual revenue. It is a textbook illustration of how commercial ground-based space warfare systems have matured from niche data services into recognized infrastructure for orbital operations.

Before the Anduril deal, ExoAnalytic operated more than 400 ground-based telescopes across a global network tracking objects primarily in the geosynchronous belt, some 36,000 kilometres above Earth. That catalog of deep-space objects supports the U.S. Space Force Commercial Integration Cell and the Commerce Department’s civil space traffic management program, with ExoAnalytic’s observations credited with detecting the 2021 rendezvous of China’s Shijian-21 satellite with a defunct Beidou navigation satellite.

Gokul Subramanian, Anduril’s senior vice president of engineering, framed the deal as an expansion of the company’s space portfolio. ExoAnalytic’s team will be folded into Anduril’s space and engineering division and integrated into the company’s Lattice command-and-control platform. The acquisition doubles the size of Anduril’s approximately 120-person space unit overnight.

Andromeda, a $1.84 billion indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract vehicle awarded to 14 companies on April 7, 2026, offers another data point on how commercial ground and space systems are being woven into the warfighting architecture. Selected firms included Anduril, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, BAE Systems, Sierra Space, Redwire, General Atomics, Astranis, True Anomaly, Turion Space, Intuitive Machines, Quantum Space, and Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems. The mix of heritage primes and newer entrants reflects a deliberate attempt by Space Systems Command to avoid single-point failures in the commercial base.

LeoLabs Builds Commercial Ground-Based Space Warfare Systems Across Five Continents

LeoLabs closed 2025 with more than $60 million in total contract awards and 186 percent year-over-year growth in U.S. government bookings, cementing its position as the leading private operator of a proliferated space-surveillance radar network. The company’s legacy Tracker-class phased array radars sit in Texas, New Zealand, Costa Rica, the Azores, and Western Australia, with newer installations pushing the footprint into additional theatres.

Three radar classes now anchor the company’s catalogue. Tracker is the legacy S-band phased array. Seeker is a fixed ultra-high-frequency direct radiating array first brought online in Arizona in December 2024 and funded partly through an Air Force Small Business Innovation Research contract. Scout, unveiled at the 40th Space Symposium in April 2025, is a containerized S-band system that can be hauled by truck, cargo ship, or even operated at sea, making it suitable for tracking launches from the Chinese mainland in the Indo-Pacific.

In March 2025, SpaceWERX selected LeoLabs for a $60 million Strategic Funding Increase that covers a Seeker-class radar in the Indo-Pacific region by 2027. CEO Tony Frazier told reporters the new radar will let the U.S. detect non-cooperative foreign launches within minutes and maintain custody of objects as they manoeuvre. The first containerized Scout is on track to enter service at a Hawaii site in early 2026. A ranger-class S-band direct radiating array, still in development, is being designed to track debris as small as 2 centimetres for space traffic management.

LeoLabs also launched LeoLabs Delta on April 8, 2026, an artificial intelligence-powered threat detection system that replaces the company’s earlier LeoGuard product. Delta ingests data from the proliferated radar network and issues operator-ready alerts on anomalous events like close approaches and obscured satellite deployments. Frazier described the new tool as a response to what Space Force leaders have taken to calling “satellite dogfighting” in geosynchronous and low Earth orbits.

The commercial case for LeoLabs rests on coverage gaps in the government-owned Space Surveillance Network. Built during the Cold War to watch for Soviet missile launches, the network skews heavily toward the Northern Hemisphere. LeoLabs’ equatorial and Southern Hemisphere radars plug the geographic holes, a point the company’s investors have been happy to emphasize. In January 2026, LeoLabs was also named to the competitive range for the Missile Defense Agency’s Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense contract, which carries a $151 billion ceiling.

Slingshot Aerospace and the Export of Sovereign Satellite Tracking

Slingshot Aerospace occupies a different corner of the commercial tracking market, operating 220-plus optical sensors across 22 sites on five continents. The company’s Global Sensor Network grew rapidly after the 2022 acquisition of Numerica Corporation’s space domain awareness division, which contributed a pre-existing low Earth orbit-to-geosynchronous optical catalog and a global site footprint spanning the United States, France, Spain, Morocco, Greece, Australia, Namibia, and Chile.

In April 2025, Slingshot announced Sovereign Space Object Tracking, a packaged offering that lets national governments stand up their own space domain awareness programs without depending on U.S. data feeds. Customers can pick from Slingshot’s Horus sensor for low Earth orbit, Argus for geosynchronous tracking, and Varda for daytime electro-optical coverage. CEO Tim Solms pitched the product as a way for smaller spacefaring nations to protect their own assets from being cut off during a geopolitical crisis.

The strategy has already produced customers. In October 2025, the UK Space Agency awarded Slingshot a contract to deploy 13 new optical sensor systems across five global sites to expand British sovereign tracking capacity. The deal supports the UK Space Agency’s Provision of Optical Delivery Partner programme and is intended to give British operators high-precision tracking and monitoring independent of data-sharing arrangements with other governments. It also integrates the UK into the Slingshot federated network, meaning British sensors contribute back into the broader data pool.

Slingshot’s software layer is an equally important piece of the offering. The company’s Digital Space Twin and the Seradata satellite and launch database, acquired alongside the Numerica deal, give operators a unified view of past, present, and forecasted orbital activity. Space Force awards for the Operational Test and Training Infrastructure program, worth $27 million, place Slingshot in the scenario-training business as well. The company earned Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Level 2 in 2025, qualifying it to handle Controlled Unclassified Information in support of Department of Defense missions.

Slingshot tracks roughly 12,000 active satellites and projects that number to reach 100,000 by 2030. That growth curve is what turns commercial optical networks from a supplemental sensor into a primary one for much of the surveillance catalog below the geosynchronous belt.

Northrop Grumman’s Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability and the AUKUS Triangle

The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) is the largest ground-based military space surveillance program currently in construction. Prime contractor Northrop Grumman is building three sites under a 22-year memorandum of understanding signed in September 2023 between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia as part of the AUKUS security partnership. When complete, DARC is expected to track objects as small as 10 centimetres in geosynchronous orbit on a 24/7, all-weather basis.

Site 1, near Exmouth in Western Australia, finished construction in December 2024. In August 2025, Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command announced the first successful multi-antenna tracking test at the site, combining the output of seven of the 27 planned parabolic dishes to track multiple satellites in the geosynchronous belt. The test validated the underlying design concept of making multiple antennae behave as a single, larger antenna.

Initial operating capability for Site 1 has slipped more than once. The Space Force originally targeted September 2025, then pushed to February 2026, and the current projection in the latest Government Accountability Office report is January 2027. Site 2, planned for Cawdor Barracks in Pembrokeshire, Wales, received a $76.7 million long-lead hardware orderon February 25, 2026 and is now targeting completion in 2030. Site 3, still without a confirmed location in the continental United States, is expected around 2032.

DARC’s strategic rationale is straightforward. Most high-value American and allied military communications, missile-warning, and electronic intelligence satellites sit in geosynchronous orbit. Chinese and Russian inspector satellites have practiced proximity operations near those assets repeatedly since the late 2010s. Without dedicated deep-space radar, the Space Force relies heavily on the Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance network and commercial providers like ExoAnalytic, which cannot operate continuously through daylight or bad weather.

Kevin Giammo, Northrop Grumman’s director of space surveillance and environmental intelligence, told reporters in 2025 that DARC fits the Trump administration’s Golden Dome air-and-missile-defense initiative as a lookout for geosynchronous missile warning satellites. Pablo Pezzimenti, the company’s vice president for integrated national systems, has argued that three sites give full coverage of the geosynchronous belt, complicating any adversary’s ability to achieve operational surprise.

Space Fence at Kwajalein and the Lockheed Martin Surveillance Contribution

Space Fence, operated by the U.S. Space Force and built by Lockheed Martin, achieved initial operational capability on March 27, 2020 at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The $1.5 billion S-band phased array radar replaced the 1960s-era Air Force Space Surveillance System and can track objects as small as a marble in low Earth orbit. Before Space Fence, the Space Surveillance Network catalog held roughly 20,000 objects. The new radar was designed to push that number into the hundreds of thousands, with a search capability extending to higher orbits as well.

The system is a digital beam-forming radar, meaning its antenna can be steered electronically to service multiple simultaneous surveillance tasks without mechanical motion. That capability matters because modern low Earth orbit is cluttered with small satellites and debris that older mechanical radars were never designed to track. The Space Force declared Space Fence the most sensitive search radar in the Space Surveillance Network when it entered service.

A second Space Fence sensor site was originally planned for Western Australia but has not been funded. The Kwajalein site, together with its operations control centre co-located with the Reagan Test Site Operations Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, remains the sole operational node of the program. Even with one site, Space Fence contributes a large share of the daily observations that feed the combined space operations catalog.

Lockheed Martin also supplies other terrestrial pieces of the U.S. space-control kit. The Layered Laser Defense system, developed using company research funds, demonstrated a surrogate cruise-missile shoot-down at White Sands Missile Range in 2022 and has been pitched as a scalable ground-based directed-energy capability. The HELIOS 60-kilowatt laser, though primarily a shipboard weapon on the USS Preble, includes an optical dazzler that can blind satellite sensors, demonstrating how laser dazzling has begun to move from research to deployed systems. The corporate portfolio also spans radar contracts, ground terminal integration, and operational command-and-control software across the national-security space enterprise.

L3Harris Meadowlands and the Counter Communications System Upgrade

The Counter Communications System (CCS) is the only ground-based offensive space weapon the U.S. Space Force has publicly acknowledged. First fielded by the Air Force in 2004 and built by the Harris Corporation (now L3Harris Technologies after its 2019 merger with L3), the transportable system uses radio-frequency emissions to temporarily deny adversary satellite communications. Block 10.2, declared initially operational on March 9, 2020, remains the current baseline. Sixteen transportable CCS units are in service today, operated by U.S. Space Force and Air National Guard personnel.

Meadowlands, the next generation of CCS, reached a major milestone on May 2, 2025 when the Space Force approved it for fielding. L3Harris delivered the first production unit to Mission Delta 3 on December 11, 2025, transitioning the satellite jammer from developmental testing into the operational Space Force order of battle. The system replaces a bus-sized equipment pallet with gear that fits inside an SUV and supports multi-frequency jamming across S-band and X-band.

L3Harris won the $125 million Meadowlands development contract in 2019 and a follow-on production contract in October 2021 covering more than 20 additional units. Erik Ballard, L3Harris’s general manager for space antennas, has described the program as “a step change in capability” rather than a routine upgrade. Software-defined architecture allows the system to absorb new jamming techniques through firmware updates rather than hardware replacement, a design choice meant to keep pace with emerging adversary satellite designs.

The Space Force has been unusually explicit about what Meadowlands does. Col. Bryan McClain, program executive for Space Domain Awareness and Combat Power, told reporters at Space Symposium 2025 that the upgrade improves mobility, automation, and jamming bandwidth and also reduces manpower needs at each site. The remote command and control piece is what allows deployed units to run with smaller forward footprints.

Meadowlands, now formally the CCS Block 10.2 variant approved for foreign military sales according to reporting in late 2025, also opens a path for allied acquisition. If partner governments procure the system through the foreign military sales process, coalition operations would include independent allied jamming rather than relying solely on U.S. emitters, a structural change for how reversible effects get coordinated across theatres.

Remote Modular Terminals, Bounty Hunter, and the Proliferated Jammer Triad

The Remote Modular Terminal (RMT) sits at the opposite end of the jammer size spectrum from Meadowlands. Developed under a September 2022 contract awarded to Virginia-based Northstrat in partnership with CACI International, the RMT is a compact, low-signature ground-based jammer built mostly from commercial off-the-shelf components. Each terminal costs roughly $1.5 million, tiny by defence program standards, and is designed to be operated remotely from a standoff site in the continental United States.

Space Rapid Capabilities Office Director Kelly Hammett told reporters in December 2024 that the office took delivery of the first four RMT units in late 2023 and planned an initial fielding of 11 units by the end of 2024. Funding has been identified for roughly 160 terminals, with the Space Force suggesting it would eventually require 200 or more to achieve the desired coverage against Chinese and Russian surveillance satellites. An RMT unit resembles a ten-foot-diameter satellite dish, emits radio-frequency energy on demand, and can be placed at forward bases or allied sites.

Bounty Hunter rounds out the triad as the sensing layer. The 16th Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron operates the ground-based system, which detects, characterizes, geolocates, and reports sources of electromagnetic interference against U.S. military and commercial satellites. A first Bounty Hunter was delivered to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in 2018 and a second to U.S. Central Command in 2019. The upgraded Bounty Hunter 2.0 training variant was unveiled in May 2021, and a further 3.0 upgrade is planned.

The three systems were publicly tied together in November 2025 reporting from Bloomberg on a new Space Electromagnetic Tactical Operations Center being built by Mission Delta 3. The operations centre is designed to synchronize Meadowlands high-power precision strikes, CCS sustained denial, and dispersed RMT effects using Bounty Hunter geolocation data. Col. Angelo Fernandez, the delta commander, said the centre would be replicated at additional locations to create geographical redundancy for electronic-warfare operators.

Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation characterized the triad as the three openly acknowledged offensive counter-space systems the United States has fielded to date. Unlike a kinetic anti-satellite missile such as the one Russia tested against Kosmos 1408 in November 2021, none of these systems creates debris. The effects are reversible by design, allowing commanders to sever adversary targeting links for a defined window and then allow the satellite to resume normal operations once the mission objective is achieved.

Kratos and the Virtual Ground Systems Layer of Space Control

Ground-based space warfare depends on a software stack that is every bit as important as the antennae and telescopes doing the sensing. Kratos Defense and Security Solutions anchors a big part of that stack. The company’s OpenSpace Platform is the first commercially available, fully orchestrated, software-defined satellite ground system in use today, supporting Earth observation, remote sensing, and satellite communications missions on a single infrastructure.

Kratos won a $579 million Command-and-Control System-Consolidated Sustainment and Resiliency contract from Space Systems Command in late 2023, running from December 2023 through November 2031. Under that agreement the company sustains the satellite control infrastructure for the Defense Satellite Communications System III, the Milstar Satellite Communications System, Advanced Extremely High Frequency, and Wideband Global Satellite constellations. That covers almost the entire legacy U.S. military satellite communications backbone.

The OpenSpace product family consists of three components. OpenSpace digitizers convert satellite radio-frequency emissions into digital streams. OpenSpace quantum products provide virtual versions of traditional hardware components, so that functions once performed by dedicated appliances now run on commodity servers. And the OpenSpace Platform orchestrates the full ground-segment workflow, from signal capture through telemetry, tracking, and control.

A July 2025 collaboration with Clearbox Systems, an Australian firm specializing in spectrum monitoring and network management, will integrate Clearbox’s Foresight product into OpenSpace and expand both companies’ joint offerings for space domain awareness and radio-frequency monitoring. That is particularly relevant for jamming detection, since the same software tools that keep a friendly ground station synchronized with its satellite can also characterize adversary interference against that link.

Beyond OpenSpace, Kratos builds microwave and radio-frequency components that end up in radars, satellites, and electronic warfare systems across the defence primes. The company also supplies ground-based jamming components under programs like the Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) system, along with C5ISR mobility systems that integrate command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance into electromagnetic-interference-shielded mobile platforms. The breadth of that portfolio illustrates how commercial software providers anchor nearly every layer of the ground segment, even when the final product wears a defence prime’s logo.

Commercial Ground Systems in a Brief Comparison

The table below summarizes the main commercial providers of terrestrial space warfare infrastructure discussed in this article, along with their flagship systems and mission focus.

Summary

The commercial base for terrestrial military space systems has consolidated and matured simultaneously in the past two years. Anduril’s move on ExoAnalytic, the April 2026 Andromeda awards, and the December 2025 delivery of the first production Meadowlands unit all point in the same direction: the U.S. Space Force and allied militaries are no longer building a ground segment around a small set of legacy primes. Instead, they are assembling a layered enterprise that combines Lockheed Martin’s Space Fence and Northrop Grumman’s DARC with LeoLabs radars, Slingshot optical networks, ExoAnalytic telescopes, L3Harris jammers, Northstrat-CACI proliferated terminals, and Kratos virtual ground systems.

That architecture rests on a specific bet about how a space conflict would unfold. Reversible, non-kinetic effects delivered from the ground are meant to disrupt adversary targeting links without creating debris that would harm friendly satellites. Commercial tracking data, delivered with faster refresh rates than the legacy Space Surveillance Network alone could achieve, is meant to keep custody of Chinese and Russian spacecraft during manoeuvres that happen on seconds-to-minutes timescales. Directed energy, still mostly naval and experimental, is inching closer to deployed ground use.

None of this makes space warfare bloodless. Ground-based jammers and dazzlers can be physically attacked. Commercial tracking networks can be deceived or hacked. The industrial base is concentrated enough that a single export-control rule or supply-chain failure could slow multiple programs at once. What the current commercial buildout does achieve is redundancy, speed, and a bigger pool of ideas than the defence primes alone can generate.

Appendix: Useful Books Available on Amazon

• The Kill Chain
• Ghost Fleet
• Wired for War
• Burn-In
• LikeWar
• Astropolitik

Appendix: Top Questions Answered in This Article

What is a commercial ground-based space warfare system?

A commercial ground-based space warfare system is a terrestrial radar, optical telescope, jamming terminal, directed-energy weapon, or software platform built by a private company and used for military space operations. Typical examples include phased array radars for satellite tracking, optical sensor networks for orbital surveillance, and radio-frequency jammers for reversible satellite communications denial. These systems complement satellite-borne sensors and weapons.

Which U.S. company operates the largest commercial satellite-tracking radar network?

LeoLabs operates the largest private space-surveillance radar network, with phased array radars in Texas, New Zealand, Costa Rica, the Azores, and Western Australia. The company’s three radar classes are Tracker, Seeker, and Scout. LeoLabs also builds the Ranger system for fine-resolution space traffic management. In 2025 the company achieved 186 percent year-over-year growth in U.S. government contracts.

What is the Counter Communications System?

The Counter Communications System is a transportable ground-based radio-frequency jammer built by L3Harris Technologies and operated by the U.S. Space Force. It temporarily denies enemy satellite communications during conflict by flooding specific frequencies with interference. The system was first fielded in 2004, reached Block 10.2 initial operational capability in March 2020, and is being upgraded through the Meadowlands program that delivered its first production unit in December 2025.

What does DARC stand for and what does it do?

DARC stands for Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability. It is a ground-based radar program developed by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Space Force under the AUKUS security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom. DARC will consist of three sites with 27 parabolic dish antennas each, providing 24/7, all-weather tracking of objects as small as 10 centimetres in geosynchronous orbit.

Who makes the Remote Modular Terminal jammer?

The Remote Modular Terminal was developed by Northstrat, a Virginia-based company, in partnership with CACI International under a September 2022 contract with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Rapid Capabilities Office. Each unit costs roughly $1.5 million, uses commercial off-the-shelf components, and is designed for remote operation. The Space Force plans to deploy up to 200 units globally.

What is Space Fence and where is it located?

Space Fence is a $1.5 billion S-band phased array radar built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Space Force. It is located on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and reached initial operational capability on March 27, 2020. The radar can detect objects as small as a marble in low Earth orbit and is currently the most sensitive search radar in the Space Surveillance Network.

How does Slingshot Aerospace differ from LeoLabs?

Slingshot Aerospace primarily operates an optical sensor network rather than radars. The company runs more than 220 optical sensors at 22 sites across five continents, covering low Earth orbit through geosynchronous orbit with both daytime and nighttime capabilities. LeoLabs operates phased array radars for active tracking. The two approaches are complementary: optical sensors excel at geosynchronous observation, whereas radars perform well in low Earth orbit day and night.

Why did Anduril acquire ExoAnalytic Solutions?

Anduril announced a definitive agreement to acquire ExoAnalytic Solutions on March 11, 2026 to expand its space portfolio and integrate ExoAnalytic’s network of more than 400 ground-based telescopes into Anduril’s Lattice command-and-control platform. The acquisition doubles the size of Anduril’s space division from roughly 120 to about 250 employees and adds industry-leading geosynchronous tracking capabilities.

What is the difference between kinetic and non-kinetic anti-satellite weapons?

Kinetic anti-satellite weapons physically destroy target satellites, creating debris fields that can threaten other spacecraft. Examples include direct-ascent missiles and co-orbital interceptors. Non-kinetic weapons produce reversible effects by jamming, dazzling, or cyber-disrupting a satellite’s functions without destroying it. Ground-based jammers like the Counter Communications System and Remote Modular Terminal are non-kinetic because their effects stop when the emitter shuts off.

What role does commercial software play in military space ground systems?

Commercial software orchestrates nearly every layer of the military space ground segment. Kratos Defense’s OpenSpace Platform is the first commercially available fully orchestrated software-defined satellite ground system and runs on commodity hardware. Commercial software handles signal processing, telemetry tracking and control, spectrum monitoring, and data fusion. True Anomaly’s Mosaic platform integrates sensor data across the orbital catalog. This software-defined approach lets operators upgrade capabilities through code updates rather than hardware replacement.

Appendix: Glossary of Key Terms

Space Domain Awareness

Understanding of objects, events, and activities in the space domain, including satellite positions, manoeuvres, rendezvous operations, debris fields, and electromagnetic interference. The capability supports collision avoidance, military operations planning, and attribution of hostile acts in orbit. It depends on a mix of ground-based radars and telescopes, space-based sensors, and software analytics.

Phased Array Radar

A radar antenna whose beam can be electronically steered across a wide field of view without physical movement of the structure. Digital beam-forming enables the antenna to service multiple simultaneous surveillance tasks and track multiple objects concurrently. Modern space-surveillance systems such as Space Fence and DARC use phased arrays to maintain continuous coverage of large orbital volumes.

Geosynchronous Orbit

An orbit approximately 36,000 kilometres above Earth’s equator where a satellite’s orbital period matches Earth’s rotation, causing the spacecraft to appear stationary from the ground. High-value communications, missile-warning, and electronic-intelligence satellites operate here. Because these assets are strategically important and relatively fixed in position, geosynchronous orbit is a priority surveillance region.

Counter Communications System

A ground-based radio-frequency jammer used by the U.S. Space Force to reversibly deny enemy satellite communications during conflict. Built by L3Harris and first fielded in 2004, the system mounts on wheeled trailers and emits radio-frequency energy that interferes with targeted satellite links. The current Block 10.2 variant is being supplemented by the newer Meadowlands version.

Remote Modular Terminal

A compact, low-cost ground-based satellite jammer developed for the U.S. Space Force by Northstrat and CACI under a 2022 contract. Each terminal costs roughly $1.5 million, uses commercial off-the-shelf components, and can be operated remotely from standoff sites. The Space Rapid Capabilities Office plans to field up to 200 units worldwide in a distributed jamming architecture.

Reversible Effects

Military actions against a target that can be undone once the operational objective is achieved. In space, reversible effects include radio-frequency jamming, laser dazzling of optical sensors, and cyber disruption of spacecraft command links. These contrast with kinetic attacks that physically destroy a target and create persistent debris fields.

AUKUS

A trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States announced in September 2021. AUKUS covers a range of defence technology cooperation areas including nuclear-powered submarines, hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, and space capabilities. The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability is one of the highest-profile space projects under the partnership framework.

Space Surveillance Network

The U.S. Space Force network of ground-based and space-based sensors that detects, tracks, and catalogs artificial objects in Earth orbit. The network includes phased array radars, mechanical radars, and optical telescopes at sites across the world. Commercial providers increasingly supplement the network with additional sensors to fill geographic and temporal coverage gaps.

Direct Radiating Array

A radar antenna design in which each element in the array both transmits and receives the radar signal directly, rather than feeding energy to a separate reflector. LeoLabs uses S-band and ultra-high-frequency direct radiating arrays in its Scout and Seeker radar classes. The design supports electronic beam steering and fast reconfiguration of surveillance volumes.

Proximity Operations

Orbital manoeuvres that bring one spacecraft close to another for inspection, docking, servicing, or potentially hostile purposes. Chinese and Russian satellites have performed proximity operations against U.S. and commercial assets in geosynchronous orbit since the late 2010s. Detecting and characterizing these manoeuvres is a primary driver of demand for commercial space domain awareness services.